


the questionable science of ufology

by ficfucker



Category: Last Podcast on The Left (Podcast) RPF
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Developing Friendships, Gen, Men in Black - Freeform, UFOs, au where henry and ben are reporters for the local paper, au where marcus lives alone on an old farm, roughly set in mid 1965 with vague historical accuracy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21781594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficfucker/pseuds/ficfucker
Summary: henry zebrowski is searching for the truth. if the only way of getting close to it entails chance encounters, strange men with shotguns, and jeopardizing his job, so be it.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	1. a sighting over parks farm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i might have gone overboard with my ufo/mib references... ive done a lot of reading 
> 
> if you get the thing about sightings happening on wednesdays, please come talk to me about mothman

A good word to describe Henry Thomas Zebrowski Jr. would be passionate. Deeply passionate, about everything odd and obscure in the world, about aliens and the paranormal and the mind-bending theories that get passed quietly under tables at diners, but while so passionate, it is seemingly misplaced. 

No one in town follows the same beliefs as him. Even his closest friend and coworker for the paper, Ben Kissel, gives him a shrug and a sad smile when Henry comes to him with stories of orbs or discs. It doesn’t bother him much. Henry is unafraid in his solitary stance: that aliens without a doubt exist, and not only that, but they have visited Earth and made contact with humans and will continue to do so. He gets weird looks around the office, has notes dropped on his desk during lunch that read “Henry, take us to your leader” and other equally annoying alien-related teasing. 

It doesn’t bother him. 

Henry goes to work as usual, types whatever reports he’s assigned, lucky if he gets some field pieces to go out and investigate, then heads home and retires every night. His at-home office is high-stacked with books and studies, any journal or publishing on UFOs and cryptids he can locate, the things that go bump in the night and scare the elderly. He has pamphlets and self-bound books with grainy photos of floating cigars and pie tins just above tree lines on every shelf in his house. He reads them before going to bed. He writes lettes to contactees who are willing to discuss their experiences. 

If he feels he’s reached a break-through or come to a new conclusion, he’ll ring Ben, bother him with theories late into the night. Ben listens tiredly and sometimes tosses back questions, challenges Henry on what he thinks he knows and whips him into a frenzied train of thought when a different theory emerges. 

Despite all the doubt, all the ridicule, the near-rejection he faces, by July of that year, Henry feels that something is going to come to fruition. 

Something sings inside of him, restless with desire. 

* * *

  
  
  


Marcus Parks is on his porch, under the dim glow of the single light he’s flicked on, tapping a Lucky Strike out of the carton.

Marcus Parks lives alone. 

The hairs on the back of his neck rise to attention stiffly. He slips the smoke between his lips, swings his Zippo open, and lights up, but even trying to ignore the atmosphere, goosebumps start to break out on the backs of his arms. Marcus sits in his chair, worn from use, nearly rubbed smooth, and continues his smoke despite the tremor in his hands now. 

“Oughta quit these things,” he mutters to himself bitterly.

If his heart is going to go, or his lungs because of his nasty habits, he’ll allow it, but not before he writes his will. He makes a mental note to do that soon, go into town, find a legal building to straighten it out for him. He shouldn’t be worried over these things, not on a fine Wednesday night, not when he’s nowhere near the end of his life.

Marcus is near done with his smoke, thinking about going in, and retiring for the night, maybe having a snack before heading up to bed, when something far out beyond the flat land of his property catches his eye. He turns his head towards it, squints hard to make out what it is. 

A light, he realizes, but the observation is useless.  _ What is it exactly? _ It has no discernible features, no steady shape. It’s globular, which gives no clues to what type of plane or rocket it might be. 

A blue-white light dancing far off, but gradually growing larger as it approaches, completely soundless as it goes. The corners bleed haze into the backdrop of the dark night, like wet ink running down canvas, thinning then pulling back into itself in a strobing fashion, nearly pulsating. 

Marcus blows smoke, holds his cigarette butt between the V of his index and middle finger, but doesn’t stray his eyes away from the object. All the hairs on his body are at attention now, fully broken out with goosebumps. He’s unafraid, though, despite the bodily reaction gripping him, and he drops his cigarette to the porch floors, stubs it out with his boot. 

The light comes closer, no sway in its movements, like it’s being drawn perfectly on a taut towline, pulling it in, and as it nears, a quiet hum comes with it. Too quiet to be any kind of plane Marcus has ever heard. The hum isn’t heavy like a truck engine, but it isn’t light and whiny like an insect either. It reminds Marcus mostly of the steady whir of a fan. 

Marcus stands, goes to the railing of his porch to crane his neck out and watch as it trails above his house. The light pauses over the empty fields behind him. He trots down the steps, goes around the right side of his house, hands shoved into his overalls. He watches. His eyes feel prickly with tears for no explainable reason. 

The craft bobs and dips, looks like it’s about to touch the earth for a split second, then shoots completely vertical, into the sky, impossibly fast, and disappears as a tiny glowing droplet among the stars. The humming goes with it, along with the thickness in the air, like a staticy blanket has been pulled off of Marcus’ body. 

“Well, I’ll be dipped,” Marcus whispers. He rubs his eyes free of tears, goes right back up his steps, and into the kitchen, calls the police station because, well, who else is there to call?

And after his call is done and all is said, insisting there be no officers to come out to investigate, but rather, just ringing to make it known that there might be new military planes flying over the area, Marcus will go down to his cellar, select a large jar of pickles, and eat the whole thing, still dressed in his dirty work clothes and his scuffed boots, before going to bed. 

* * *

  
  
  


“Zebrowski! Case for ya!” 

Henry sits up straighter at his typewriter, reaches out to grab the manilla envelope as it’s passed to him by his superior. It’s early for a new story to be breaking, 7 am on a Thursday, typically a slow time for the week. He certainly isn’t going to argue. He’s been pecking away at keys to finish a piece on the Older Americans Act, passed yesterday by president Johnson, which was supposed to Ben’s article, but he's shucked it off to Henry to type properly for the paper after drafting it last night. 

Henry doesn’t give a shit about the elderly. He figures once his knees go and his body isn’t fit to run wildly into the woods in the pursuit of the truth, he’ll ask Ben to take him behind a shed and put him down like a lame horse. 

“Parks Farm?” Henry asks softly, flipping open the folder. He brushes through the papers, all marked in crude pencil, confused, eyebrows knitted together, and Ben gets up from his desk a few feet away, leans over his shoulder to look. 

“Oh,” Ben says. 

“ _ Oh _ ,” Henry says. His eyes keep scanning over the notes, heart thumping in his chest as he puts together what he’s being presented. 

[ _ Parks Farm. 36 Middle Rd. Strange light reported in front of and then in behind of property. Witness, a one Mr. Marcus Jordan Parks, home and landowner, warns it may be new military crafts. Could not give further details as to shape or model. Phoned police station: 10:48 pm, July 14th, 1965. Inisted no officers visit property. No assumed damage. _ ]

“Henry…,” Ben says, voice hushed, like a mother warning an unruly child. 

Henry shoots up from his chair, almost smashes Ben in the chin with his shoulder, slams the folder shut with the papers jammed messily inside. “Field report!” he shouts and the few others in the office look at him dryly, unamused. “Field report!” He grabs his camera and slings it around his neck, scrambles his hands over his desk to find a notepad, a good pen. 

“You’re comin’ right?” Henry asks, whipping his head around to look at Ben, who is standing there awkwardly, nowhere near as enthused as Henry is. 

Ben sighs and nods, gets his Press ID from his desk, and follows Henry out to the front room. Travis, a young and new part of their team, who mostly organizes papers and takes calls, looks up from his position at the main desk. Henry likes him well enough, a quiet kid, but funny when he opens up, soft-spoken and eager to help in whatever ways he can. 

“Got a field report,” Henry explains, dropping his voice deep like a hard-boiled detective. “We should be back within an hour or two, but hell, with  _ this _ case?” He drums the folder on the edge of the desk dramatically and Ben suppresses a groan. “Could take allllll day.” 

“Alright,” Travis says. He doesn’t appear moved, goes back to pulling papers from a filing cabinet as the boys brush by, go out the front door to the parking lot. 

* * *

  
  


“And what are you planning here?” Ben asks once they start nearing the edge of town, where the land gets flat and fertile, dotted with farms, both active and abandoned. “This man- He clearly doesn’t  _ want _ anyone seeing him. I mean, he-he refused officers…!”

“Well, do I  _ look _ like an officer?” Henry gestures to himself one-handed and Ben gets the point. In a pair of yellow and brown tartan pants and a muted green pullover sweater, Henry hardly looks like someone who works for any respectable paper, let alone a man of the law.

“Point taken,” Ben says. He shifts a little in the passenger seat. His knees touch the dash even with the way he’s all tucked in to himself. “I’m just saying… This guy could really bug out if we show up when he doesn’t want anyone around.” 

Henry scoffs, turns down a dirt road. “We’re not going in and shaking him down, Kissel, for Christ’s sake. It’s just a follow-up. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Ben is brainstorming good answers when they reach the address: 35 Middle Road. It’s a pretty well-secluded place, neighbors hard to see from any direction, with large swaths of field, notably wheat and corn. The building itself is old, a nice porch in the front, two stories high with evenly spaced, long rectangular windows, but the paint is weathered, the grass growing near the bottom of the steps is tall and yellowing. If this Marcus Parks character lives alone, it’s a lot of property to upkeep and it doesn’t seem like he’s been handling the load well. 

“This guy… must be a Boo Radley type,” Ben whispers. 

The dirt and gravel crunches under their tires.

"Or a Norman Bates." Henry kills the engine halfway down the long winding drive, pops open his door. 

Ben unfolds himself and gets out, says, "Jesus, Henry, don't say that. At least Boo was a good guy." 

Henry closes his door with his foot and exhales, starts marching his way up to the house. "Hi. Henry Zebrowski, with the paper," he says under his breath, practicing the line. He'll jut out his hand for a shake, offer to show his ID, keep this Marcus character at ease while they talk. 

Ben doesn't go up the steps. He watches Henry trot right onto the porch like a trained dog. "You are  _ going _ to get yourself shot, Henry," he warns, voice calmer than he feels. 

"All in the name of- all in the pursuit of the truth," Henry replies and he raps his knuckles hard on the front door, takes a step back, rocks on his heels. "Henry Zebrowski, with the paper," he repeats in a whisper. 

The door creaks open and suddenly Henry is looking down the barrel of a 12 gauge shotgun, pointed at him by a gaunt, weasel-faced man with tired blues eyes and a thin, tight mouth. 

"Holy shit," Henry breathes and he's so shocked, he starts to laugh. 

"Oh, Jesus  _ Christ _ ," Ben yelps a half-second later when he realizes what's going on, takes a step back and twists his heel funny on an uneven clump of earth, stumbling awkwardly. 

"Private property," the man says firmly, not moving the scatter gun an inch from its position. He looks like a scorpion raising to sting. 

Henry wheezes. His hands are shaky and he smiles weirdly, points at the camera hanging around his neck. "Henry Zebrowski. With the paper," he says. 

The man squints, looks at the laminated tag dangling from the lanyard.. “I said, this is  _ private _ property.” His eyes dart over to Ben, go wide when he sees the size of him. 

“Uh. We-we-we uh. The Last Paper on the Left got a report about you- you called the station last night?” Henry tries. “About seeing lights in the sky. We just came to ask some questions. We’re not lookin’ for anything else.” 

“I didn’t request officers.” Slowly, Marcus lowers the gun, props it over his shoulder, away from Henry. He leans in the doorway, not opening it any further, his face only visible a sliver. His upper lip has a few sprouts of thin, dark hair. 

Henry laughs nervously, shakes his head. “We’re not officers, man. We’re just- we’re with the  _ paper _ .” If he wasn't so shaken up from all this, Henry would probably be getting pretty bent right now, frustrated that this man can’t even seem to follow plain English. 

“And Big Lennie over there?” Marcus jerks his chin towards Ben. “He’s with the paper, too?” 

“Yes, sir,” Ben says. He holds up his ID for Marcus to see. 

Marcus stares at Henry a long moment, dissective eyes sweeping over him, probably judging his fashion choices in contrast of Ben, who is dressed politely in a grey suit. 

Finally, Marcus says, “Alright. Sit then,” and he slips out the door, gun still holstered over his shoulder. He takes place in his worn chair, gestures at the one other empty across from his at an angle. “But keep it anonymous. I don’t need more like y’all pokin’ around back here at all hours of the day.” 

* * *

  
  
  


Henry takes furious notes despite how little Marcus is really saying. 

“And it comes over like this.” Marcus gestures with his arm in a smooth arc, hand cupped to emulate whatever it was he saw. “And it hummed. Hummed like nothin’ I’ve heard before. Quiet. Real quiet.”

“And it was just… a light, Mr. Parks?” Ben asks gently. He’s, despite himself, captivated by what Marcus is saying. Between the subtle drawl and the seriousness to Marcus’ voice, Ben gets a chill that raises the hair on his arms like he’s listening to a good campfire story.

“Mhm. Glowed like… Like. Shit, I don’t even got a word for it.” Marcus puffs his fresh cigarette and exhales the smoke through his nose, watching as Henry works his pen quickly over the yellow notepad. “Imagine a ball of dough. Little watery so it kind of sags. It was like that, ‘cept it glowed like a headlight.” 

Henry’s head snaps up. He’s hunched over himself. “So you didn’t see any windows?”

Marcus shakes his head. “Nup. Like I said, it barely kept a shape to it.” 

“And it disappeared behind the house?” Henry presses. 

“Mhm. Back there in one of the empty fields where I used to grow potatoes.” 

From where they’re sitting (Kissel standing, leaned against the porch railing) the fields can’t be seen. 

“Shot up into the sky? Completely vertical?”

“Gone like a flash. Never seen somethin’ go that fast before.” Marcus sticks out his tongue and dabs the smoldering end of his cigarette out on it. It sizzles, leaving a streak of black over pink. Ben winces but Marcus continues talking, “It just  _ whoop _ , zipped outta sight.” 

Henry nods, listening close, and when he finishes with his note, a big jumble of chicken scratch, he looks up and asks, “Can we see the field?” 

Marcus’ eyebrows go together. “Out of the question.”

“But did it leave anything behind? A burn mark? Indentation?”

Marcus shakes his head. “I looked this morning. Everythin’ is in apple pie order. No burns or marks.” He’s being truthful. At dawn, when Marcus had gotten up, more out of habit than need for the day, he had been drawn to go look at his fields, make sure nothing strange was out there. Not a stalk of corn or blade of grass was out of order. There was no crater left behind by the pushing force of acceleration. 

“But could we still take a look? There might be somethin’ Ben and I can see that-”

Marcus holds up a hand. “You two are lucky you got me talking at all. I said I didn’t want officers or anyone comin’ down and they still sent y’all.” 

Once again, as quick as it had opened, a door has closed for Henry Zebrowski. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Ben and Henry are well on their way to getting smashed. It’s a Thursday night and they’re fit to be in the office the next morning to type and research articles as usual, but Ben had suggested they go to their favorite haunt and drink off some of the scorn and hurt of Henry’s goose chase leading them nowhere. It must be working. Henry, as it looks to Ben, is getting loose and giggly. 

“It coudla been somethin’ big,” Henry slurs. “Somethin’  _ big _ if it wasn’t for that fuckin’ hick out there.” He sputters, amusing himself, then takes a gulp from his glass bottle. 

A song by the Four Tops plays on the jukebox in the corner. 

“I don’t think it’s fair to call him a hick,” Ben points out. “He’s just a- He’s a…”

“A backwoods!” 

They both roar with laughter, too sloshed to realize how stupid they’re being, and relief washes over Ben, glad Henry isn’t sucked into a pit by today’s rejection with Marcus. They’ve gotten some odd leads before and they all lead nowhere. Like clockwork, Henry became depressive and aloof, the fire gone from him completely. With some alcohol in him, Ben knows, all that goes out the window. 

They’re talking about the new guy, Travis, when a man in a ink-sleek suit comes over and asks to sit with them, his voice monotone and dead. The place is pretty hopping for a weekday, busy and humming with conversation, but this guy sticks out like a sore thumb in his pressed suit. 

Henry cocks an eyebrow, always the one most ready to stir the pot, but Ben mutters a hearty, “Sure, man.” 

The stranger sits. He’s nearly as tall as Ben, who himself towers at a ripe 6’7. His hair is cut close to the scalp, only a few millimeters in length, and what is there is dyed a strange reflective white. He says, still sounding on the edge of robotic, “My name is Tiny.” 

“Well, nice to meet ya, Tiny,” Henry replies. 

“What are you drinking?” Tiny asks. He speaks with the same inflection as a scientist inquiring about lab results. 

“Rheingold,” Ben answers. He passes Tiny an unopened bottle across the table, a friendly gesture despite how off this guy looks in his sleek suit, his bizarre haircut. 

They’re not ones to judge. Henry is always pushing the envelope on the definition of fashion and many people have told Ben he would have been a main attraction if he were alive in 1840 and P.T Barnum caught sight of him. 

Tiny lifts the bottle and inspects it, but does not attempt to open it. He looks directly at Henry. “Do you ever see lights in the sky?” he asks. 

Henry looks directly at him, sees his eyes are bugging like Thyroid eyes, wide and maybe inflamed, it’s hard to tell in the dark of the bar. Henry squints, feeling suddenly sobered by the question despite the wavering in the rest of his body. “Lights?” 

“Do you ever see them?” 

Ben is silent now. 

Henry shrugs and sets down his bottle, unknowingly getting into a defensive position at the table. It’s no secret that he’s the town’s UFO nut. “Sometimes,” he says firmly. “Yeah, sometimes.” 

TIny keeps an even stare on him. “Have you ever seen space people?” His voice has never changed in pitch or tone. 

Ben rounds his eyes and gives Henry a kick under the table before getting up and pretending to order another round at the bar. In truth, he’s just watching from afar. 

Henry shakes his head. “No. I haven’t. I. Not yet, no.” 

Tiny blinks slowly. He still has his bottle in his hands, sweating, unopened. “It’s dangerous to investigate.” 

“Uhuh,” Henry says. 

“Did you visit Parks Farm today?” 

Goosebumps raise on Henry’s arms, his heart dropping, but he doesn’t show it, doesn’t squirm under Tiny’s cold, analytical eyes. He wishes he hadn’t gone out drinking at all. “I don’t think I’ve ever… heard of a place called Parks Farm,” he lies. 

Things look tense and he wants Henry away, so Ben calls, “Hey! Henry! Gimme a hand with these, will ya?” He gestures to a tray of fresh beers. 

Henry looks over and nods, getting up with the slightest stumble. 

Tiny sits at their table a moment more. He takes a pristine fountain pen out of his breast pocket and scribbles two lines down on a fresh napkin. He leaves it in the center of the table before leaving. Tiny knows it will end up in Henry’s pocket without him putting it there. 

He exits the bar and gets into an awaiting Cadillac. 

* * *

  
  


Henry wakes up the next morning in bed, naked except for his underwear and a pair of white socks. He has a killer headache and he stumbles to the bathroom to run some water and splash his face. He looks like hell and feels twice as bad. 

Almost always working twin shifts, Henry knows he and Ben don’t have a morning shift. They go in about noon, so he has more than enough time to get cleaned up and dressed, get hydrated. 

When he comes out of the bathroom, still in his socks and underwear, Henry spots his pants from yesterday, discarded in a crumpled heap in the center of his floor. He looks at them for a long while. He’s drawn curiously to them in a way he doesn’t have words for. 

He picks up his wrinkled pants and fishes around in the pockets, comes away with a white square napkin from the bar. There’s writing on it. 

_ PARKS FARM: MARCUS PARKS. _

Under that is Marcus’ home phone number. 

Henry goes into the kitchen to call Ben, not even bothering to put on pants first. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“Just listen to me for  _ one _ fuckin’ second, man,” Henry pleads, getting all worked up, frenzied. He puts a hand on Marcus’ shoulder, wants to turn him around, but he feels like just touching Marcus has crossed a line and his heart leaps nervously. 

They'd gotten lucky. Henry swung by to pick up Ben and then they'd immediately shuttled to Marcus' place, not bothering to call ahead. They caught him right before he left: loading his truck with roofing, dressed in his dirty work jeans, a light shirt. 

Marcus turns of his own accord. “Alright. Well, I’m fuckin’  _ listening _ , man.” 

Henry stammers, squirming like a crushed bug under the intense gaze of Marcus’ piercing blue eyes, then gulps down a breath, and holds out the flimsy napkin again. “How would someone know- how did whoever this guy was  _ know _ that we were out at your farm yesterday? I get that you know a whole bunch of folks around here but how-how on  _ earth _ did this dude figure we were seeing you? We came alone!” He shakes his head. “And contrary to what shit you want to believe, we’re not  _ bugged _ !” 

Marcus glares, rolls his eyes. “Coulda seen you two driving in or out. If you haven’t noticed, Henry, this back road is a  _ long _ one. You could pass any number of people movin’ hay or lumber or-”

“Yeah and? What are the  _ odds _ that someone saw us- out in the middle of  _ Fuck Off, _ Nowhere, mind you- and they just happened to be in the same haunt as me and Ben last night? And-And  _ recognized _ us,” (Henry is really starting to raise his voice now, face straining with a heated red) “- and waltzed on over, said absolutely nothing about you or-or-or knowing you and slipped a napkin into my pocket with your name and number? That’s not a little odd to you, Marcus? You don’t think- there’s nothing off with that story?” 

Marcus blinks cooly, goes back to loading his truck with bundles of black shingles, grabbing them by the binding twine. “You know  _ what _ , Henry? Yeah, it is a little odd. It’s a little fuckin’  _ twisted _ , but guess what? People way out here in the middle of  _ Fuck Off, Nowhere _ , as you call it, are a little odd.” He laughs dryly and shakes his head. “That doesn’t make them… That doesn’t mean they’re special agents of the government looking for small town  _ paperboys _ .” 

Henry smacks his palm flatly against his forehead. “You didn’t fuckin’ see this guy, man. His eyes… He looked like a goldfish or somethin’. And-And-And he spoke like a tape recorder. Does that sound like anyone you know, Marcus? You hang out with real fuckin’ nuts like that?” 

Marcus glares at him now, curls his mouth into a snarl. He laughs shortly again, sounds like a horse snorting. “Outside-a  _ you _ ? Not fuckin’ really. Us  _ Boo Radley’s _ don’t take to goldfish eyed men in bars, if such bullshit even exists.”

Ben, who has been standing silently from around the other side of the truck, realizes it’s time to intervene and he wedges himself between them, says, “Glory. Alright, boys, cool it some.” He turns to Henry, says softly, in a hushed voice, “How about we  _ don’t _ upset the man who almost shot you yesterday, yeah?” 

Henry just groans, gripping at his head. 

Ben turns around so he’s facing Marcus, who’s back to cooly stacking his bundles of roofing in the bed of his truck. “Listen, Marcus, I’m very sorry about all the stir we’ve caused. Henry gets so… He’s so  _ passionate _ about these things. Weird things.” Ben sighs. This isn’t the first time he’s had to cover Henry’s ass in a situation like this. 

Marcus rolls his eyes, but whatever heat he had in him has gone down to a slight boil. “It’s… It’s fine. You two just go on back to whatever reporting it is you do and leave me outta it. The napkin is weird. I’m not saying it isn’t-”

“So you admit it! The guy  _ is _ weird!” Henry yells, leaning his head around Ben’s large frame to point at Marcus.

“Henry,” Ben warns, without turning. 

Marcus doesn’t look ruffled, he continues calmly. “It's weird, sure. But he could have been anyone. I’ve been around here a long time. So you two go right on back to your office and leave me outta it. If he comes knockin’, I’ll let ya know. Other than that, the case is closed.”

And to punctuate his point, Marcus goes around his truck and slams the tailgate up and shut. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Henry sulks over his milkshake, the first time Ben’s seen him too distraught to eat. His burger sits ignored and he keeps flipping through his notepad, tapping his pencil against the paper. 

“Hey,” Ben says. “Somethin’ll come of it. And if not.” Ben shrugs, trying to seem optimistic. “Then it’s another blip on the radar and you can add it to your files.” He pushes Henry the rest of his plate of fries. 

Henry smiles sadly and takes a fry, dips it into the thick cream of his vanilla shake. “It’s just… It’s  _ exhausting _ , Ben. And don’t try to get me with your little pep talk. I appreciate it, but I know you’re the farthest from believing.” 

He’s been called on his bullshit. Ben shrugs again. “I’m just letting you know it’s not all… it’s not a total strikeout. You have notes. You have a witness. File it away for later reference or something.” 

Henry’s mustache is hatched with white now from his refusal to use a straw. “Guess you’re right,” he says. They can run the report through to superiors and see if the account of the “weird man” gets added. 

So far, though, neither Henry nor Ben have heard back from the paper about whether or not their interview with Marcus yesterday is going to go through to print. Henry typed the finalized report after Ben had gone through and redacted what details he thought would be too exposing to Marcus’ privacy. There’s not much to do but wait and see. 

If it’s booted, Henry still has his notes. He can add them to the stack of other reports he’s accumulated over the years, keeping the Parks Farm one right at the top as the best account yet. 

Ben’s right. He can compare cases, draw a string between witnesses and see what holds up. 

“Keep the napkin, too,” Ben points out. He taps a finger over it, splayed next to Henry’s notepad. 

Henry looks up. He nods seriously. “That’s the most damning part. Marcus can brush it off but that- things just don’t happen like that.” 

Some seats down from them, blocked by Ben’s body, a man in a sleek suit, his peroxide hair cut short and close to his head, struggles to use a fork

  
  


* * *

  
  


Marcus is sweating like a horse in the mid-July sun. Holden’s gone into the house to fix some iced tea, but even with the promise of that, Marcus is afraid he’s losing his steam. His eyes itch. The tar of the shingles stick to his thick gloves in black patches and make holding a hammer twice as difficult. He’s still a bit miffed about this morning, being hassled with those news reporters again. 

Holden’s come back out with the tea in a big pitcher and is pouring Marcus a glass when a van turns down the road. Marcus sees it, an odd looking van with dark windows, but he doesn’t think it anything special. He goes down the ladder until he’s on the second to last rung and, his gloves tucked into the back of his jeans, he reaches out for his glass. 

“Lookin’ good up there,” Holden remarks. He has an almost nasally lilt to his voice. Marcus likes listening to it. 

“Mm. Hot as the devil, though.” Marcus takes an appreciative sip of his tea, so sugar-sweet it sears his throat on the way down. He finishes the glass and holds it back out to Holden, who fills it automatically. 

“Yeah. Coulda picked a better day. Gotta get done though.” 

Marcus is going to ask how much Holden’s planning to pay him for the day when the van comes back and this time, turns into the drive, pulling right up to where he and Holden are. Two men step out, one from the drivers side, the other from the passenger. They’re dressed in identical, unsophisticated blue coveralls. The driver, who is taller than his partner, maybe as tall as Marcus, has a shaved head. His hair looks bleached. The other man is wearing a dark slouch hat that does not match the overalls.

The driver says, “Here to look at your heating system.” 

Holden blinks. “My heating system?” he asks. Marcus knows his friend doesn’t have a furnace, just a big steel wood stove that heats his two story house well enough to survive the winters. 

The passenger nods. His neck looks stiff. “We got a call.” 

Marcus narrows his eyes. Even if Holden had a furnace that needed fixing, there’s no chance in hell he’d call it in on a day like this, so sorching and humid. 

“Actually, Holden doesn’t need anyone over right now,” Marcus interjects. “You two didn’t come quick enough, so he had me come take a look.” 

Holden looks deeply confused, casting a glance over at Marcus. “Uh,” he says.

The driver nods, unblinking, as Marcus has noticed, this entire time. “We would like to take a look to ensure you’ve fixed it properly.” His voice is emotionless even for a topic as dull as home repairs. 

Marcus nods, feigning compliance, and says, “Well, actually. You two could be of some help. I didn’t bring my socket wrench and if I could borrow yours, you can come right on in, make sure it’s working proper as soon as I give it one more tweak..” 

“Socket wrench,” the driver says, turning to look at his partner.

His partner nods slowly and goes around the back of the van, opening the rear doors, out of sight from both Holden and Marcus. The driver gets back in behind the wheel, starts the car, and as soon as the back doors slam shut, the passenger apparently having hopped in, he reverses harshly. His tires squeal. The van whips around sloppily and rips out of the driveway. 

“What the  _ hell _ was that?” Holden asks, his high voice even higher with surprise. 

Marcus shrugs. He has a feeling he knows and it makes him nervous. He doesn't tell Holden. He just says, “Probably some crank call. Got sent to the wrong house.” 

He drinks his second glass of iced tea in one long gulp then climbs back up the ladder. “If you actually had a furnace,” Marcus says down to Holden, “I could fix it.” 

* * *

  
  
  


Marcus gets home at 1 pm and goes directly to his phone, picking up the little note card Henry left him when he stopped by yesterday to ask about the lights. He dials Henry’s home number first and gets no answer, so he tries the number for his work. The Last Paper on the Left. Marcus thinks the name is stupid, but it’s a paper he recognizes. He’s read it maybe two or three times before. 

“Hello. Travis Mourningstar speaking, with the Last Paper on the Left,” a young voice greets on the line.

“Uh. Hi. I was wonderin’ if I could speak to Henry Zebrowski? He interviewed me recently and I have some… further information for him.” 

There’s a muffle of exchange on the other end and then Henry comes on saying, “Hello. Reporter Henry Zebrowski here.” 

“Henry,” Marcus says. “Some guys- weird guys came by where I was workin’ today.”

“Weird guys?” he echoes. 

“In coveralls. They had that strange peroxide hair you were talking about. Shaved. There-two of them came over, wanted to fix a furnace. My friend, Holden, he doesn’t  _ have _ a furnace.” 

“Okay. Shit, okay. Marcus. Are you home?”

“Yeah. Just got back.”

Henry already sounds excited, his breathing harsh over the phone. “Okay. Ben and I are coming over. Don’t answer the phone. I’m not calling back, okay? Don’t answer it.”

“Okay.”

Henry hangs up and Marcus stands there a moment, then puts the phone back on the receiver and trots down to the basement to get a fresh jar of pickles. 

* * *

  
  
  


“Terms vary,” Henry says, spreading his papers out over Marcus’ kitchen table, “but most people call them the Men In Black.” He points to a Xeroxed page from a book by Albert K. Bender titled  _ Flying Saucers and the Three Men. _

Marcus loudly crunches a pickle and nods.

Ben watches silently, feeling both anxious and silently exasperated. He can’t believe they’re skipping work to talk about aliens and UFOs with a practical stranger. 

“Some-Some of ‘em hover. Are just shadows. The ones we saw-we  _ both _ saw looked human, right? Yeah, okay. They probably don’t want us talking then.” Henry makes eye contact with Marcus. “They’re-The Men in Black are tricky. I don’t know their game. Except they don’t want us knowing what we know.”

Marcus almost seems amused. “And what  _ exactly _ is it we know?”

Henry holds up his stapled copy of Project Blue Book and taps the cover fiercely with his index finger, says, “That there’s shit out there, man. UFOs. Aliens. Space people. Men in Black who-who might not even be  _ real _ .” He scrambles through his messy files, all skewed on the table top in heaps of Xeroxed pages, finds another self-bound book.  _ Magic and Mystery  _ from 1929. “It could all be psychic phenomena. Reality is a thin string, Marcus. Men in Black and-and space people pull it till it snaps.” 

Marcus raises his eyebrows. He offers a pickle to Ben who wrinkles his nose, puts a palm up as a polite decline. 

“Tulpas. Do you know what a tulpa is? Okay so-It’s thought manifestation. It’s hard to-I don’t know how to describe how the Men in Black relate to them perfectly, but it’s thought-it’s  _ theorized _ that our  _ minds _ generated their existence… It’s less a real flesh-and-blood thing and more-it’s more a  _ psychic _ encounter. How you think of it shapes how it-it comes to you.” 

“Okay. What made two men in coveralls come to Holden’s house then?”

Henry shrugs. His eyes are focused like lasers, thinking deeply. “I dunno. Trying to intimidate you? Scoping you out with a-a ruse? There are endless-it’s not understood where they come from or how.” 

Marcus shakes his head and rubs at his chin, trying to make sense of everything that’s been slapped down in front of him. Henry sure has a collection of UFO artifacts: letters from “contactees” and badly angled photos, several Xeroxed books that look like he’s bound the backings himself. 

“If you see them, Marcus- if they come back. Ask for a name. Ben and I got a name from the one we saw. I’m not gonna tell you what it is. If you get a name, tell us and we’ll know how serious all this is.”

Marcus picks up a document, an outline for something called Project Grudge. He says calmly, “You sound like a paranoiac.” 

Henry huffs. “Just-I know. I  _ know _ I do. I  _ always _ do! But listen, Marcus, be careful what you say on the phone. Don’t even write letters. If you have things to tell us, the paper, whoever, call, and we’ll meet here.” 

“Lines get clipped,” Ben finally pipes up.

“Oh yeah?” Marcus gives him a skeptical look. 

“Trust me, Henry’s called enough times for me to hear it happen. Beeping. Buzzing. Voices coming into the line and speaking, oh, I don’t know, Spanish or some other language. You name it. We’ve gotten all sorts of interference.”

“Numbers,” Henry adds. “Sometimes a deep voice recites numbers before the line gets dropped.” 

Marcus looks at the display in front of him: Henry in his white-and blue striped button up, his corduroy pants; Ben looking like a big city reporter with his dull blue suit; the tangle of papers and documents dating centuries back of sightings and theories, all of Henry’s own personal collection. 

“You’re serious about this?” 

Henry nods firmly. 

“I’ll… call you if something else happens, okay? I’m not fully there yet with all the-the UFOlogy talk, but I’ll keep you posted.” 

Ben snorts, says, “You have no idea what you just signed up for, bud.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey thank you for reading!
> 
> come talk to me on tmblr @ficfucker


	2. pareidolia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "pareidolia is the tendency for incorrect perception of a stimulus as an object, pattern or meaning known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds, seeing faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns, or hearing hidden messages in music."

Ben and Henry get back to the office after having stopped by Henry’s first to return his personal UFO files. The Rolling Stone’s  _ I Can’t Get No Satisfaction _ plays out tinny from the small radio they have set up in the back of the typing room. On Henry’s desk is an article outline about Vietnam and Communists he has to type up for tomorrow’s print. He groans, but starts clacking away. 

Ben talks to someone over the phone, taking notes at his own desk. It doesn’t seem any more interesting than what Henry has been saddled with.

Henry works mindlessly. He’s farther from the paper than ever before, stuck thinking about Marcus Parks and his shotgun and his stubborn refusal to let them look in the fields. Henry doesn’t trust him fully yet and thinking to the hour prior, he feels a little foolish to have shown up on his steps with his arms bulging with UFO reports and pamphlets. 

Still, when Marcus had called and said he’d seen those weird men, those men in their too-perfect black suits, Henry had gotten over-excited. It’s not every day he gets to show someone new his impressive collection on the topic, and Kissel is long since bored of it. Henry’s known for his extremes. 

It must mean something that Marcus had allowed them in. A tell of seriousness. 

Marcus seems like an oddball himself, though. Before departing, he'd offer both Henry and Ben jars of pickles, explaining he brines them homemade in his cellar. 

Ben politely said no thank you. Henry said some other time, sure, but he'd taken note of it. He wondered, following Marcus to the front door, if everyone on the outskirts of town was like this: kind of off and rustic and extremely do-it-yourself no-help-from-outsiders.

Henry is blotting out a misspelling with his little bottle of white correction paint when Travis comes in. He puts a folder on Henry’s desk. It’s labeled PARKS FARM in neat type and below that, in harsh red ink, is: NO FOLLOW UP, NO PRINT. 

Travis frowns sincerely and says, “Sorry, man…”

Henry waves a hand, says, “It’s whatever. It was going nowhere. Was right to kill it.” He looks down at the folder before glancing back up at Travis and asking for more correction fluid. 

Travis agrees to grab another bottle and disappears into a back storage room. 

“Hey,” Ben says in a low voice, “at least you’ll get to keep the official report in print.” 

Henry snorts, drops his head into his hands for a moment. “Highlight of my life, Kissel. I get to keep my  _ rejected _ account in a nice, pretty folder with all the others.” 

At home, he has more than a dozen. 

* * *

  
  
  


Henry gets home at 5:20. He dropped Kissel at his place then went the few streets over to his own house. 

He goes about his evening routine of undressing down to his underwear and having a glass of milk. He heads into his office, which is actually the spare bedroom turned study, and drops the Parks Farm file onto his desk. He looks down at it, the folder fresh and new against the older reports, all worn on the edges from being opened and leafed through so many times. It mocks him. 

Henry puts on his Eddie Noack vinyl, the one with Psycho on it, and sits down to look things over. What’s a connecting thread between Marcus’ story and all the others he has? The sighting was a Wednesday, the most popular night to see something in the sky, according to his other cases. He pens that down. No to low sound. That’s common, too. Another note scribbled. 

What else, what else? 

Marcus had been rubbing his eyes a lot when they’d gone and seen him, but Henry hadn’t asked. He writes “ _ UFO blindness _ ” with a question mark next to it. 

Noack croons his twangy, slow-paced serial murder ballad from the corner while Henry tacks his notes up to the big corkboard above his desk. He takes a step back to look at it all. 

He thinks about Tiny. The face that comes to him in memory is sogged with alcohol, but the eyes are sharp with focus: bulging, small-pupiled like pinpoint tack heads. It makes Henry shiver in his own home, standing there, looking laxly over his papers. 

_ you think i’m psycho, don’t you, mama? / you better let them lock me up  _

Henry spends the rest of his night holed up in his study, rearranging his corkboard with clippings and notes pinned side by side. He doesn’t call Kissel with any observations this time. 

His record finishes and the needle trails the final groove of the vinyl over and over until Henry notices his music has stopped and he goes to switch the album.

Outside, a Cadillac idles on the street corner with the headlights dead. 

* * *

  
  
  


Ben Kissel is having pasta and sauce alone at his kitchen table that night. He thinks about both Henry and Marcus, his best friend and the man that's fallen into their lives. Marcus will probably get tangled up into the while UFO mess Henry has going, just like Ben has. 

He's not sure what he believes anymore. Aliens? Mysterious men in suits? Topics he's painfully comfortably with, almost numb to now, no shock or surprise when Henry calls to talk about tulpas and shadow people. He doesn’t have much of an opinion. He listens to Henry ramble and entertains his claims with skeptical questions, but hes’ not swayed one way or the other. 

Odd enough, especially for a Friday, Henry doesn't call. 

Ben is thinking about how badly he'd like to get away from the paper and more into public politics when all the power in his house goes out. 

No flickering lights. No crackling of wires. 

Just like someone has hit a switch, Ben is cast into the darkness there at his table. 

* * *

  
  
  


The next day, warm and much less humid than the one before, Marcus goes back to see Holden. He’s mostly interested in finishing the roofing and getting paid.

In his small dining room, Holden serves Marcus a tall glass of milk and tries to toe back into the topic of the strange men in the coveralls they’d seen. 

“So uh, Marcus, you figure out the deal with those two guys?” he asks casually.

Marcus knuckles at his left eye like a dog scratching a flea and sighs, says, “It was just a crank call sent here, Holden. I don't think they meant any harm."

"You think?" He rakes his fingers nervously through his beard, standing leaned against the frame of the doorway that connects his kitchen to the dining room. 

Marcus nods, finishes his milk. "Yeah. I know so. They come back around, call the cops on 'em." 

That makes Holden look even more nervous, his eyes quick. "The cops?" 

Marcus stands and goes to bring his glass to the sink, giving Holden a brotherly slap on the back as he passes by him. "Just to scare them off for good. Get a gun like I got if you don't want the police snoopin' around." 

"A heater? What am I, a cowboy?" 

Marcus snorts. "A cowboy? You sound more like a kid than a cowboy sayin' 'heater' like that. I meant more so a shotgun than anything else." 

Holden mutters on his unease while Marcus pulls on his work gloves to finish the roof; about a third of one side slant left to fill in and then he's done and paid. 

His eyes hurt something awful and he's ready to get home and not worry so much about money, at least for a few days. Marcus assumes he’s dried them from being out in the sun, staring down at the sparkling black tar of the shingles for several hours. Maybe his sheets need a washing, has gotten dust into his eyes. 

He'll probably swing by the drug store on the way home. Get some pain reliever, another carton of cigarettes, food to make the ice box look full. Laundry detergent, for sure.

Before Marcus climbs the ladder, he asks if Holden will come by in a few weeks when the corn is ripe and help him harvest. 

Holden agrees, that'll he do it in trade for a burlap of ears and nothing more. 

To Marcus, that sounds like a perfect plan and for a minute, he forgets about his sore eyes and the strange men and the unexplained lights in the sky. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Ben groans and slaps his hand around blindly until he feels the smooth plastic of the phone on the nightstand and he picks up. "Ben Kissel speaking," he answers. His voice is heavy and graveled with sleep. 

"Jesus, Kissel, this is my  _ third _ time calling," Henry complains. “It’s already 10, you know.”

"Power's been out. Went out last night so I just went to bed. Dunno when it came back." 

"Went out? Christ, man, it wasn't even storming or nothin'! Why didn't you come over to my place?" 

Henry is in his kitchen and he peels a yellow slip of paper with blue lines off his notepad on the counter. He writes the date and next to it:  _ power out at Kissel house _ . It could easily be nothing, but he wants to keep a record anyway. That’s what he’s good at. 

Ben rolls over in bed and scratches his chest. "Didn't want to bother your highly involved research," he jokes dryly. What he means is he needed at least one evening’s break of the UFO and MIB talk or he’d lose his mind. Maybe the phone being dead was a blessing, didn’t have to listen to Henry work himself red in the face for once. What bliss.

Henry fakes a laugh. “I was going to take you out to eat, but with that attitude, you can forget it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me get some pants on and we can go.”

“The Junction fine?”

Ben sits up in bed, cradling the phone to his ear. He knows what that means. “Are you bringing a 3 ring binder, too?”

“Oh, fuck you, Kissel,” Henry laughs. “You’re lucky I let you in on top secret things like these. You should be honored! Hours and hours of research and you get it handed to you on a silver platter.”

Ben finds his jeans shoved under his bed. He’d had a few beers in the dark before retiring last night, doesn’t remember even getting undressed. “Honored? I don’t think I ever  _ asked _ to be-to be served this kind of information, Mr. Zebrowski.” 

“Well, I hope you’re hungry, ‘cause this is a 4 course meal I’m fixin’.” There’s a pause, then Henry says, “I’ll be over in a half hour.”

“Yep.” And with that, Ben hangs up the phone and pulls on his pants. 

* * *

  
  
  


Marcus arrives home at the same time Henry is picking up Ben. He’s got a few sacks of groceries, brings them up the steps and into the house. Holden had paid him handsomely, much more than he was expecting. Marcus figures it’s a silent thank you for outsmarting the men in coveralls, seeing at how shook up Holden had seemed that morning. 

Marcus isn’t complaining in the least. He’s bought an assortment of treats for himself: a bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans, a box of Pop-Tarts, a dozen Eggo Waffles, a sleeve of marshmallow Peeps, and several packages of Slim Jims. With that, he also decided to get the most expensive detergent he could find, along with a bottle of Tylenol. 

Marcus has a Slim Jim, goes up to his bedroom, strips his bed, and brings his sheets to the basement, shoves them into the washer. He has no dryer, so when they cycle’s complete, he’ll take his bedclothes and hang them out on a line on the porch. 

He’s just come up from the basement, the washer humming dully, when his phone rings. He answers with a curious, “Hello?” 

On the other end of the line, Marcus can hear a faint beep. Then another.

“Hello?” he asks again. He doesn’t hear the third beep because he speaks over it.

_ Beep _ . 

The line goes dead, no static or anything coming out of the speaker, absolutely, frighteningly silent, like the vacuum of space. 

Marcus sets the phone down dumbly, eying it. 

“Just like Henry had said,” he mutters. 

For the first time in his life, Marcus locks his front door. He peers out one of the front windows, but the day is peaceful and pleasant, the sun winking down at him in warm, straight rays, his long, dry front yard empty. No cars are on the unpaved back road. 

Marcus goes back into the kitchen and takes a dose of Tylenol. His eyes are near burning now, itchy-red in the corners. The washer thuds in the basement. He turns on the radio and does dishes, ignores the back part of his mind that wants to think about the phone call. 

Instead, he focuses on the idea of maybe getting a few hens before the warm weather ends. It’s been a long time since the property’s seen any livestock and it’d be nice to have fresh eggs. Some hens would be easy enough to take care of on his own and building a small coop would be a perfect distraction from all the sudden weird in his life. 

* * *

  
  
  


Ben orders pancakes, eggs sunny side up, three cuts of bacon, white bread toast, and a cup of coffee. Henry gets two waffles, a chocolate shake, a blueberry muffin, and some link sausages. 

Despite Ben’s teasing, Henry’s brought a folder. It would be surprising if he didn’t. 

The Junction, a medium-sized diner-style restaurant, is their standard go-to for discussions like these, though if The Junction is busy or unavailable, they sometimes eat at The Dingo. They always sit in the farthest back, left side booth seat. Henry almost always gets a shake or malt. Ben always gets coffee. The wait staff knows them by first and last name. 

“What’s on the table today?” Ben asks. The sooner he initiates, the sooner Henry will be done. 

Henry opens the folder with a dramatic flair and looks Ben in the eye. “Ben, what’s a common theme between UFO sightings?” 

Ben chews a strip of bacon thoughtfully. His mustache twitches. “Your incessant need to be involved in them somehow?” 

Henry’s mouth goes flat, he rolls his eyes. “Yeah, good one, man.” 

“I dunno, Henry, what  _ is _ a common theme?” 

Henry takes a drag from his shake then says, “So, I did the calculations last night. From my own reports and others I’ve-I’ve got my hands on from papers and contactees. I tied ‘em all together. About 20% of sightings happen on Wednesdays. Around or after 10 pm, and what do we know about Parks Farm?” 

Henry slaps down the penciled report that had lead them to Marcus earlier that week.  _ Phoned police station: 10:48 pm, July 14th, 1965.  _ Henry shuffles out some other papers with T charts on them. Every Wednesday is underlined in red pen, along with the report time circled in the same red ink. 

“And what does this all mean exactly?” Ben halves one of his pancakes, forks a big chunk into his mouth. 

Henry shrugs. “Wednesday is the day, I guess. And-and not just here. Not  _ only _ in America. Reports from other countries about… lights or saucers or discs, Wednesday is still higher than 17% with them, too.”

“Alright. So Wednesday is the special day then.”

“Don’t be an ass, Kissel.” 

Ben huffs out of his nose, kind of half-smiling. “I’m not. I’m not! Wednesday it is! We go out with our Polaroids and our Kodaks and wait them out.” 

“You’re treating this like a joke.” 

“I don’t know what to tell you, Henry. You should be happy that Parks fella let us talk to him at all and now-now you’re all in a tizzy like somethin’ huge is gonna come out of this! How many times have you rambled yourself blue about-about space people and flying saucers? You should know by now you get a report, it leads nowhere, and-and you get all upped on it before you’re down in the dumps like always.”

Henry sighs, something in him flickering. It doesn’t last. He gets a second wind and points a fork at Ben, says firmly, “You know what, Ben? Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m chasing rabbits. But I’ve got a feeling about this one. We’ve never… The Men in Black are new. And it wasn’t just us seeing them! Marcus and his buddy saw them, too! It’s  _ gotta _ mean something.” 

Ben finishes his first pancake. The diner is starting to fill out now, mostly families with young children, having a late breakfast on a nice Saturday. Ben envies them, how simple they are. They don’t know a thing about what lurks right behind the curtain.

“And your power outage, Ben,” Henry adds. “Don’t think that doesn’t mean anything. I made a note.” 

“Oh, great. Now I’m part of the Great Zebrowski Files. Just what I need: to be tied up in this more than I already am.”

Henry snickers. “You bet. It’s too late, Ben. You’re a loony like me already.” 

Ben knows better than to argue. Ben knows Henry is right. 

* * *

  
  
  


Marcus is outside finishing hanging his wash. A car crunches into the drive and Marcus wishes he had brought his shotgun onto the porch with him. He’ll take his own advice if those coveralled men show up on his property: scare them off like he’d told Holden to do.

He turns and sees Henry driving, Ben in the passenger seat, and the wish dies down. 

“Hope this ain’t becomin’ a habit,” Marcus calls out, clipping up the last pillowcase. 

Henry steps out first. “We tried callin’ beforehand but you didn’t pick up!” 

Marcus sighs. His eyes itch furiously. He can feel one welling with something, pus, probably, maybe involuntary tears. It will roll over onto his cheeks eventually, he knows. “Phone’s been actin’ up all day,” he says plainly. Marcus wants another Slim Jim.

“Acting up how?” Henry comes onto the porch like they’re friends. Ben follows. All 3 of them are fenced in by the clothesline, the porch screened in by the fresh wash.

“Beepin’, not getting calls to come through. Went dead silent, like someone was clippin’ my line.” Marcus shrugs, sits himself down in his chair. “Shit. I’m getting ready to yank it out of the damn socket at this point.” 

Henry looks excitedly over at Ben, but when he looks back to Marcus, his eyebrows bunch up. He sits in the chair opposite to Marcus, like last time. “Hey, man, you feeling okay? Your eye is swollen as hell.” 

Marcus grunts. “I think I got somethin’ in it when I was roofin’ for Holden.” 

Henry frowns. “Jesus, Marcus, I’m sorry.”

“‘S fine.” It’s funny how quick Henry has switched like that, Marcus thinks, how he’s suddenly concerned and considerate, how just yesterday morning, Henry was ready to come to fists over meeting a strange man in a bar. 

“We uh, stopped by because we wanted to let you know that Wednesday is the most common day to see a UFO.” 

“Well, gee thanks, guys, I’ll be sure to put that to good use.” Marcus taps out a cigarette and offers to them both. Henry and Ben decline. 

“Also, I wanted to give you my address in case you ever want to reach me through the mail.” Henry takes a small slip of paper out of his breast pocket and hands it to Marcus. “Seeing as how the phones are already acting up. Just- keep it short that way, too. Nothin’ can be trusted.”

It’s a sad day in America when even your mail is being tampered with.

“What if I come over to steal your hub caps instead?” 

Ben giggles. He leans against Henry’s chair, puts his elbow to the back of it. 

Henry shrugs one shoulder, says, “Then so be it.” 

Marcus feels bad about making the joke, realizes how sincere Henry is being with him. He looks away, puffs his cigarette silently. 

“Your power go out at all?” Ben asks to break the tension.

Marcus glances up and shakes his head. “Nup, not here. Why, you two lose it?”

“I did, not Henry.” 

Marcus’ sheets flap gently in the warm breeze as it passes. It’s about noon now and the weather is perfect. 

“You guys want Cokes? I just bought some bottles.” 

Ben and Henry say sure, so Marcus goes in and gets them from the icebox where he’s been chilling them. He comes back onto the porch with three Coca Colas and a silver bottle opener. He pops the tops and passes them accordingly. His eye hurts like a red hot poker. 

Henry asks, “You ever hear about UFO blindness before?” and the two other men on the porch say no, so Henry tells them about it. 

* * *

  
  
  


That night, Henry goes to the movies on his own. Marcus is laid up in bed with his eye oozing gunk and Henry’s not sure he’d ask him to a movie yet anyway. Ben wants a night in on his own and Henry respects that, so he kicks it alone. 

The local theater is playing The Collector and Henry, ever the consumer of all things bizarre and horror, gets a ticket and settles in. He doesn’t mind doing things by himself. 

Henry  _ thinks _ he’s by himself.

Five rows behind him, a large man in a Russian fur hat keeps his eyes trained on the back of Henry’s head the entire duration of the film and Henry doesn’t notice him once. No one says anything to the man, not even a single comment about wearing a winter hat in the middle of July, and indoors. He sits through the movie undisturbed and walks through the lobby virtually unnoticed. 

He gets into a black Buick and drives away. 

* * *

  
  
  


Across town, Marcus is having one last cigarette before bed. He should know better by now. His left eye is almost completely swollen shut now, the other irritated red. Marcus taps a cancer stick out of the carton, slips it between his lips. He cracks his bedroom window open enough to squat by the gap and exhale. 

He can see one of his fields from here, the empty one, and if he cranes his neck he can see the wheat field some yards from it. And above his wheat field, maybe 40 feet up, is another glowing blob, more cigar shape than the last. It makes no noise. 

Over the scent of his cigarette, Marcus smells something sickly sweet, like the rotting of overripe flowers. It makes him gag, slam the window shut. He watches the bluish-white cigar for a few more moments before it dips and bobs and then rockets out of sight, directly into the sky, just like the last one. 

Marcus finishes his cigarette and goes into the bathroom, gets a cold rag. He sleeps with it draped cooly over his left eye. 

If he remembers, in the morning, he’ll call Henry. 

And if that doesn’t work, he’ll mail a letter. 

Marcus dozes off imaging what color he’ll paint his chicken coop. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
